Jim Spanfeller, former CEO of Forbes.com, said at a recent presentation at the Advertising Women of New York that he thinks publishers creating iPad apps to publish content are ridiculous. “There is no reason that their web sites can’t be doing the same thing.”
This is a couple of weeks after the publisher Hearst announced that it would be charging at least as much for the iPad version of its magazines as it does for its analog versions – perhaps even more.
I don’t think Spanfeller has had a chance to play with some of the new apps and publications. As many iPad users say, there is something different in navigating pages by swiping pages this way and that way. On a web page, it probably wouldn’t be so swift. And if you consider the Minority Report style of computer interface that is very likely going to be available soon (see John Underkoffler on Ted.com), you’ll probably agree that these things add up to the notion that we’re going to be seeing real changes to the way we consume online media. (more…)
